If you as an advertiser, whether you as an interactive advertising agency or a specialist corporate branding firm, have portrayed your customer in poor light to contrast it with the product utility, you sure as hell have diminished the brand's ability to comfort the self-esteem of those who use it.

This ‘highlight by contrast’ strategy would boomerang as you might have made a pretty entertaining ad which might achieve higher recall scores, but you have also established your brand as a snob.

Brand users define themselves through the brands they use, why is it that so many brands insist on portraying their customers as bumbling idiots, rude individuals or societal misfits? If your product is not real niche one in the category of Rolls Royce (then you don’t need to tom-tom your brand, do you?) people with their individual frailties would never identify with your brand.

A brand becomes successful when it consistently reflects the same set of values over long time and when, as a result, the consumer begins to associate those values with the brand and its owner. When this happens the brand creates a feeling of comfort and trust as customer knows those values and is secure in the knowledge that the brand owner is willing to stick by them.

But, as with any relationship, it is a two way street so far as mutual respect and trust is concerned. The consumers who are willing to trust your brand will trust it even more if the brand, in turn, shows them that it trusts and respects them. Tell them how great you think they are and never say or do anything that belittles them.

Show your customer that not only should they like your brand because it is trustworthy but because it lets them know that your brand likes them too and thinks of them as the fairest of them all.